The Trouble with SelfInserts
by Oreramar
Summary: Aelin is going on her first solo Sue-fighting mission against a self-insert-mousemaid...no problem, right? Think again. This is a different sort of Sue, and she’s throwing the events of ‘Mariel of Redwall’ into havoc. Can one lone otter stop this in time?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything from the world of Redwall, including characters, locations, customs, and dialects as they pertain to that world. There are portions of this chapter quoted directly from Brian Jacques' _Mariel of Redwall_. They are merely meant to tie the story in; as the story progresses, I hope to use fewer and fewer of these quotes due to the nature of my story itself.

This said, read on and enjoy yourself!

--

Quote of the chapter: _"Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison." Henri Amiel_

--

A little bit of power can be a dangerous thing in the hands of someone not prepared for it. There is a reason why toddlers do not get to use 'real' scissors, why young children are not allowed to operate a stove unsupervised; they cannot comprehend the dangers of such things just yet. All they see is a pretty glowing red color in the stove coils, comfortably warm at a distance, and therefore so lovely to try to touch...

A similar sort of power was now sitting in the hands of a thirteen-year-old girl, tantalizingly beautiful and deceptively innocent. It was the size of a small paperback book, black and silver, with various multi-colored metallic buttons and dials set in its surfaces, and a cord stretching like a coiled tail from its side to the computer that sat before the girl. Little green lights blinked across the top of the device wildly as she tapped its small keyboard. On the computer screen, images flickered rapidly: a badger became a squirrel which was just as quickly replaced by a mouse. Fur color shifted, and then eye color, attire, weapons...

Satisfied at last, the girl typed in more words. The three-dimensional image of the mousemaid vanished, and a landscape appeared. Figures moved across it, day turned to night turned to day again, and she pressed a button. The screen froze, flickering slightly at the edges. The girl twisted one more dial, pressed another button, and smiled. The computer screen went blank. Whirring noises emerged from the strange gadget, and a small rectangle, about the size of the standard USB memory stick, popped out.

A lanyard was quickly attached to a hook at the top of the nondescript black rectangle of metal, and hung around the girl's neck. She took a deep breath and flicked the thing open, revealing a small red button, just below another flashing green light.

Without another thought, the girl pressed that button. A flash of light filled the room, and then all was dark again.

--

Far away, Aelin Wordsmith was flying...Okay, she was _dreaming_ about flying. But at the time, it amounted to the same thing. The swooping, soaring sensation was all that mattered. Her bliss, however, was to be short-lived.

At first the beeping was distant and barely audible. It grew quickly, though, swelling until Aelin's head felt about to burst, and she stopped flapping her arms to cover her ears. The dream-forces that had been holding her in the air faltered, then failed altogether, shifting her into a sudden fall. Just before hitting the ground, though, it opened, and Aelin rocketed out into the familiar blue-black of the Otherpaths.

In an instant, Aelin recognized the meaning of the noise. "No! Why now? Why then? I WAS HAVING A GOOD DREAM!"

Though she would have liked nothing better than to go back to reality (her dream pocket would have sealed up the moment she left it – it was nearly impossible to return to a dream once it had been interrupted), the sound was insistent. So instead of turning back to let others deal with it, Aelin swore that whatever Sue or Self-insert she had picked up on would pay dearly for her interrupted flight.

In a flash she had entered the pocket where her newly-installed Sue Sensor System was flashing red lights and blaring sirens, all of it overridden with that shrill, eardrum-bursting beeping sound she had first heard. The first thing Aelin did was rush to the manual alarm shut-off lever and yank it down as hard as possible. The sirens and beeps immediately faded to nothing, though the red lights still threw their glare over the crowded room.

Rubbing her eyes and yawning, Aelin stalked over to the large viewscreen situated in the exact center of the far wall and kicked the rolling swivel chair beside it out of the way, only barely registering her Otherpath-induced transformation from human to otter. One button-push later, and the machine started to whirr into life. While waiting for it to boot up, Aelin made herself a large mug of tea with enough sugar to send your average horse into hyperactivity. As a result, by the time she had finished reading through the (admittedly sparse) information her basic scanners had picked up, the otter was wide-awake and twitching with energy.

"Oh boy, oh boy, first solo mission!" She jabbered to herself as she pulled items from her storage closet for packing. "Hope it's not too hard, hate to get off to a bad start – hmmm, lightsabers: to bring, or not to bring...nah, stick to swords this time, only gotta take care of one beasty – never really done this on my own before, darnnit now I'm sorta scared – ooooooh, waterproof tent, yes, good thing that might be – must not talk like Yoda! Bleeding little self-insert mousey-maid, interrupting good flying dream. Love those dreams. _Yesss, precioussss..._ Hey, I didn't realize I had MRE's in here!"

An hour later, swords sheathed across her back, carrying a well-stuffed backpack, and whistling something that vaguely resembled "Yankee Doodle," Aelin left the Otherworld pocket and rocketed toward her destination: The Dark Forest of Mossflower Realm.

--

_Dawn broke mistily over the dunes, promising another hot summer day. The mousemaid Storm awoke to find herself surrounded by toads. During the night the well she had dug had filled up with water, and all around Storm the toads were closing in on her and the precious water. She closed her eyes again, feigning sleep. Her paw grasped Gullwhacker, the knotted rope, as she watched them through partially closed eyes..._

And suddenly, a flash of light came out of nowhere and out of it stepped a lovely mousemaid. Her fur shone beautiful dark chocolatey brown and her eyes were probably usually a lovely brilliant kind sky blue, but now they were as stormy as the ocean and seemed to snap with lightning. She wore a sea-blue tunic with a shiny silver belt that set off her perfect appearance, and carried a bow and quiver of arrows strapped over a golden cape (which should have looked just a little strange with sea-blue and silver, but somehow managed to seem perfect) and held two long, bejeweled silver knives in her two delicate-but-strong little paws.

"Begone, foul toads!" She cried with a voice like a bell, and something in Storm's buried memory quivered with familiarity. "Leave this poor young mousemaid at peace! Else I shall rid this beautiful place of thee!"

For a moment, the toads seemed to be honestly considering following her instructions. They wavered, glassy-eyed as though under a trance, and one or two dropped their tridents and turned to hop away. Then the biggest one, obviously the leader, shook his ugly head as though to clear it and took a step forward.

"_Grroikl_! You speak oddly, mouse, and unwisely. _Krrrr!_ We are many. You are one. Fight us and die. _Grrrrok!_ Leave now, Oykamon has spoken._ Rrrreb!_"

The other toads also seemed to shake off their momentary mindlessness and followed Oykamon's lead, shuffling forward and lowering their tridents menacingly. The mousemaid stood still for a moment, and then with a twirling leap that defied every law of gravity, physics, and mouse physiological limits, she plunged into the midst of the toads.

Storm jumped to her feet at this moment, all traces of familiarity and foreign friendliness replaced by outrage. How dare this stupid, unreal, impossible little slip of a beast fight _her_ battle, for _her_ water? She quickly vented her fury on the nearest toad, leaving it both cross-eyed and unconscious on the sand. By the time she had Gullwhacked her third toad into senselessness, the other mousemaid had effectively driven off the others, most of them with superficial wounds that nonetheless seemed to terrify them. Storm faced this stranger, the paw wrapped around her Gullwhacker twitching in anger.

The mousemaid seemed not to notice. She sheathed her knives at her sides (without cleaning them, though oddly enough, no blood seemed to be on the blades at all) and flashed Storm a literally dazzling smile. Storm was still blinking lightspots from her vision when the mousemaid came up and offered a paw.

"I'm Azalea Sea-Emerald, pleased to finally meet you."

Storm was about to let swing with the Gullwhacker against the interloper's head when a strange shout came over the dune.

"Good egg! I say, was there a scrap here recently? Only we were just passed by a whole rabble of toads looking scared out of their slimy skins – thought there might have been vermin or somewhat making messes of things."

Despite herself, Storm looked up. Coming down the dune were three lanky hares carrying lances. The one in the lead – the oldest, it seemed – was the one who had just spoken. He strode straight over to her waterhole and looked down at it.

"Is this your water, young 'un? May I?"

Storm shrugged, bothered slightly by all of these strangers suddenly dropping down on her. "May as well," she grumbled, watching the hare bend toward the surface. He stopped halfway down, glancing up at her disgruntled face, and abruptly reversed direction.

"'S all right, we can manage until the next stream on our patrol. Still, allow me to introduce us." The hare made an old-fashioned bow to Storm. "I am Colonel Clary, family name's Meadowclary, of course, but you can call me Clary, everybeast does. This young wag over here is none other than the celebrated Brigadier Thyme, and the young gel is our ward the Honorable Rosemary, Hon Rosie to you. Capital! Now, pray tell me whom I have the honor of addressing, marm, though you're a bit young to be a marm, aren't you."

Before Storm could answer, the strange mouse butted in. It seemed that she didn't like the attention being off herself for too long.

"My name is Azalea Sea-Emerald, Warrior of the Silver Blades. I drove the toads off to rescue this poor young mousemaid, whose name is..."

Storm's temper flared, and the Gullwhacker whipped out to trip '_Azalea'_. The too-beautiful young mouse landed in the sand in an ungainly heap, too shocked to do or say anything for the moment. "I can say my own name, and I didn't need rescuin'!" She turned then to face the slightly surprised hares. "I'm Storm Gullwhacker. This is my Gullwhacker. D'you like it?"

Brigadier Thyme opened his mouth to say something, but Hon Rosie's earsplitting laugh cut across it.

"Whooyahahahah! I'll say you don't need rescuin'! Not short of grit, are you? Still, best help your friend there back up."

"She's not my friend," Storm argued back, ignoring Azalea struggling to her feet nearby. "She just appeared out of nowhere and started fighting. I didn't need help, not with my Gullwhacker around."

Azalea was starting to look very, very lost and out-of-place. "But there's so much I _know_ about you! I'm supposed to tell you all about it. Like how you lost your memories in that storm. I have a potion that can bring the memories back for you, real easy. And then..."

"Hold on a moment here," Colonel Clary said, his whiskers twitching on his nose. "Memories? Potion? What in the name of Lord Rawnblade of Salamandastron is the gel talking about?"

"I have no idea," Storm replied, eyeing Azalea as though the stranger were a madbeast.

"But I know who you really are!" Azalea wailed desperately. "You're Ma—"

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

A young female otter came barreling over the dune, screaming bloody murder as she tackled Azalea to the ground. They rolled over and over in the sand, stopping with the ottermaid pinning the mouse down and raising a strange metal cylinder in one paw. She shook it furiously, emitting a rattling noise, and pointed it at the mouse's chest.

"TAKE THIS, SUE!"

The otter's claw pressed down on the button at the top of the cylinder. With a prolonged hissing sound, a fine mist sprayed outward, smelling strongly of garlic. The garlic-spray created a large, evil-smelling damp spot on Azalea's tunic and made her eyes water, but had no other effect. The otter paused in confusion, just as Brigadier Thyme drove the blunt end of his lance against the side of her head. She slumped over immediately, the metal canister rolling from her limp paw.

Azalea struggled out from under the now-unconscious otter, one paw clamped tight over her beautiful nose.

"Some kind of madbeast," the Brigadier said, bending over and checking the otter's rapidly-swelling lump. "Seems fairly harmless, though."

"Harmless?" Azalea squeaked indignantly, her lovely voice altered slightly by the paw still pinching her nose. She blinked tears from her eyes as the reek of garlic permeated even that barrier. "She _attacked _me! And she's armed! What if she attacks and kills someo—somebeast—else?"

Storm couldn't blame anybeast for attacking Azalea – something about the mousemaid grated on her nerves, though she couldn't name just what – but she also couldn't deny that no sane being would have jumped somebeast and then sprayed some sort of garlic water on them.

"Don't think that'll be a problem, young 'un," Colonel Clary said to Azalea, even as he tried to surreptitiously shift to a position upwind of her. "Remember, she didn't go for her swords even when she had you down. Just the garlic thingummy, and that'll wear off. No real harm done."

Azalea mumbled something inaudible, but made no more argument. Colonel Clary then suggested heading northeast to the forest, to have lunch with and visit somebeast called Pakatugg. They agreed to this, and also to leaving the otter there at the waterhole, though they did try to lay the creature out a little more comfortably before going, and Hon Rosie dug some food from her havvy-sack to set beside the otter. Storm swung her Gullwhacker idly as she watched Hon Rosie do a quick patch on the madbeast's swollen head-lump.

"There! That ought to do the trick. The thingummy'll be up again in no time, though I don't think she'll be jumpin' on nobeast for a day or two."

The otter moaned softly and shifted then. She opened her eyes for a brief moment, then shut them again against the bright, near-noon sunlight. In another moment, her breathing became soft and even again.

"Out like a snuffed candle," Brigadier Thyme whispered. "C'mon, let's go. She'll wake up soon enough, and it's probably best we're gone by then. Don't need to be followed by a madbeast set on knockin' down young mousegels, wot?"

They formed up a quick marching line, with Clary at the front, followed by Storm. Azalea tried to squeeze into the spot just behind Storm, but Hon Rosie, choking on the sudden wave of garlic stench that rolled from the mousemaid, caught her quickly by the shoulder.

"Er, yes, er, perhaps you should march rear guard for us, wot? Make sure those slimyskins don't come back at us from behind."

Azalea seethed at her own ill fortune all the way to the forest.

--

The next time Aelin opened her eyes, the sun had passed the high point in its travel across the sky, the throbbing in her head had lessened, and the toads were back. Half-hoping that they were a bizarre illusion brought on by heat, lack of water, and a head wound, the otter squeezed her eyes shut again.

Something sharp and three-pronged poked hard into her side.

"YOWEE!" Aelin screamed, kicking and scrambling to her feet, one paw already checking her ribs for injury. Fortunately, the toad's cautious prod hadn't pierced fur and skin. Unfortunately, her shout and sudden motion now had every trident nearby pointed in her direction. Aelin froze, self-preservation instincts kicking in.

"_Grrrok!_" A large toad shuffled forward a careful half-step; just enough to gain attention, but still well away from the otter. "I am Oykamon. These are toad lands, and this is toad water. _Rrrrrak!_ Leave now, and never return. You will get no other chance. _Grriok!_"

Aelin raised her paws carefully, in as non-threatening a manner as she knew how. Still, some of the toads twitched at the small motion. _What happened to them? I don't remember them being this jumpy in the book._ Out loud, she said, "All right, all right. I'm going. Just open me a path east, could you?"

The toads on one side of the circle shuffled carefully aside, keeping their tridents up. Aelin was beginning to feel a little jumpy herself. Barely able to keep herself from bolting, the otter scooped up the wrapped package that someone had left beside her, tugged on the straps of her backpack and swords, and walked away from the toads, rigid with fear. Once out of sight over the dune, the otter began to hot-foot it out of there, mentally going over what she remembered of her day so far in Mossflower. She reached a conclusion long before she began to pant for breath.

_This has _not_ begun well at all_.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** Okay, this is early for me. Special treat. Ususally updates take place a week or more apart. Enjoy!

Quote of the Chapter: _The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them. Friedrich Nietzsche_

* * *

Night fell quietly over Mossflower wood, as it often did in summer. In fact, the evening was so utterly ordinary that Aelin wondered if the Self-Insert had tripped on a root and broken her slender, sparkle-ridden little neck.

_Of course, that would be far too easy_, Aelin thought as she punched her camp pillow into something a little more comfortable than a concrete slab. _Force forbid a Sue to be that clumsy._

Once the inside of her tent was as cozy as it was going to get, Aelin popped her head and one paw outside to retrieve her dinner, which had been cooking in the Flameless Ration Heater included in the MRE packet. In Aelin's opinion, the less often she had to deal with fire, the better. Using her teeth, the otter tore the bag open and let steam escape into the rapidly cooling air. She sniffed with appreciation at it. Aaaah – chicken breast. Not exactly home-cooked quality, but good enough. And for that, she didn't care that goodbeasts like otters canonically were vegetarians. That little piece of canon could go and jump in Mount Doom.

Her stomach making itself known, Aelin ducked back into the tent, zipping the flap closed to keep unwanted visitors away as she ate her MRE dinner.

* * *

It had taken Azalea Sea-Emerald the better part of four hours to persuade Storm that she needed her memories restored, another half-hour to convince the hares that she had the potion to do it and that it was perfectly safe, and several long minutes to get that walking bush of a squirrel to agree to letting her perform her 'healing' in his hideout. In short, Azalea had been forced to waste the entire afternoon arguing with a pack of skeptical animals when she and Mariel might be marching off to Redwall, meeting Dandin, and generally being wonderful.

Add that to the ever-clinging stench of garlic, and the mousemaid's mood was less than spectacular. Still, she had to keep up the appearance of an unruffled, wise, and kindly being, so Azalea smiled and hid her grumpiness as best she could.

"You may want to make yourself comfortable someplace," she advised Storm while selecting a crystal bottle of a glistening turquoise liquid from her belt pouch. As Storm warily complied, Azalea made a small show of holding the bottle up to the firelight as though to check the color and consistency. In truth, Azalea already knew that the potion was perfect, and that she wouldn't have been able to tell otherwise in any case.

"Would you just get it over with? I'm about to change my mind about this," Storm snapped from her reclining position nearby. Azalea offered her another blinding smile and uncorked the sparkling vial of potion. She handed it over to the other mousemaid, who eyed it with distaste.

"Well?" Azalea prompted gently, her huge, deep blue eyes shining in the firelight. Storm threw her a quick glare.

Then she tipped the potion down her throat.

* * *

Aelin jerked awake in the middle of the night, wondering what woke her. As her ears caught up with her body, she realized that it was music of some kind. Then the rest of her brain crossed into semi-wakefulness.

Groaning, the otter rolled over and dug through her backpack with one paw. Finally she found what she was searching for, and dragged it out into the open. The piping music – an Irish jig of some sort – was much louder when not muffled by layers of cloth and plastic. Aelin fumbled about the device until she found the switch she wanted and flicked it. The music vanished, replaced by a steady blue-white glow from a screen that took up the majority of the thin, square object's top surface.

"Kalyn?" She said, addressing this screen. "Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me!" A vibrant green ripple pulsed across the screen. Aelin blinked dark spots from her vision. "Where the blazes are you?"

"Mossflower," Aelin replied. She sat up with a sigh and reached for the camp light. Obviously she was going to be up for a while, and it would be a good thing to have a little bit of regular light to counter the visual effects of her Speakerscreen.

"_Mossflower?_ What are you doing there?"

No doubt about it; the green ripples were growing brighter and brighter. Aelin hoped that Kalyn calmed down before her emotions broke her only communication device.

"I _was_ sleeping before you called. Thanks a bunch, by the way."

"You know perfectly well what I meant by 'what are you doing.'"

"Fine. I'm Sue-hunting. Happy?"

"No, _not_ happy. Why didn't you take me along? I want to hunt Sues!"

"I didn't take you because I wanted to do one on my own. Just one, Kalyn!"

"I'm coming out there."

"No!"

"Yes."

"NO!"

"Yes I am, and you can't stop me."

Aelin dropped her tone angrily, and her words took on a sharp accent. "Listen here, _Squeaks_, and listen well. I am tired. I've walked miles out here. You just woke me up from a good, solid sleep. I'm also frustrated, both with you and with this bleedin' Sue, and I have a headache. In short, if I wasn't already in something of a bad mood, you're sending me there rapidly. I want to do this alone as a point of character. Show up, and I'll probably do something we'll both regret."

Silence filled the tent, broken only by the sounds of breathing from both otter and Speakerscreen. When Kalyn finally spoke, her voice sounded odd.

"Okay. Fine. I get it."

Out of sheer stubbornness, Aelin held onto a little of her anger. "Yeah? Well, good."

"Uh-huh." Something that sounded suspiciously like a sniff emerged from the device. "Well, then. Bye."

"G'bye."

With a snapping sound, the green ripples in the Speakerscreen disappeared into the glowing blue background. Aelin flicked the power off distractedly and put the communicator away. Now that it was too late to say anything, her mind filled up with various explanations and arguments for why she wanted to take down this Sue on her own.

With her mind still wandering, the otter turned off her light and settled down to try to sleep.

* * *

The next morning dawned slowly, the pale sunlight struggling to find a way through the few thin gaps in the forest canopy. Like the evening before, nothing about the sunrise suggested the influence of a Sue on the world of Mossflower; no odd colors adorned the sky or woods, the birds were only just beginning to wake up, and Aelin wasn't moved to describe any of it in poetic terms.

Of course, even if the sun _did_ resemble a great golden apple or some other such rot, Aelin wouldn't have been moved to poetry anyhow. One reason might be a lingering bad mood from the day before. Another, slightly more essential reason might be because she was still asleep.

Her sleep getting interrupted two nights in a row, coupled with the hard work of trekking over country consisting mostly of sand dunes and the lance-end-induced goose egg on her head, resulted in a heavy, dreamless slumber that carried Aelin through the entire morning. It wasn't until the sun had nearly reached high noon, and thus shone straight down on the pup tent even through the thick trees, that the sluggish otter woke up. And because she _was_ feeling sluggish, it took her a full half-hour of packing to realize just how late it actually was.

"Oh, _sithspit_!"

With that accurate summation of events so far, Aelin wrestled the half-folded pup tent into her backpack, yanked the zipper shut, and took off through the woods at a run. At least this time she knew exactly where she had to go.

Redwall.

From what Aelin remembered of reading _Mariel of Redwall_, Mariel traveled with Pakatugg for half a day or so before they separated. Later she met Tarquin, and after an unknown amount of time traveling, they finally reached Redwall Abbey. The otter's only hope was to cut the party off before they reached their destination, and that meant getting to Redwall ahead of them. At least Aelin knew the moss-on-trees directional trick. From there, it was pretty simple to keep going south.

It would have been a lot simpler, too, if one little thing hadn't changed.

Aelin didn't hear a thing, what with her own breathing and crashing pawsteps filling her ears. Nor did she see anything odd, or even smell it. In fact, the first part of her to realize something was very wrong was one tiny nerve cluster near the middle of her tail.

And for one tiny nerve cluster, it could really deal a stunning blow to the pain center of her brain.

Aelin yelped, tripped on a root as she lost her footing, and fell flat out on the ground. She reached around and gingerly felt along her tail until she found the source of the sting: a small object that could only be a dart. Already her tail was growing numb. She nearly threw the dart away, but thought again and instead slipped it into the strap of her backpack. One never knew what could become useful in a book-world.

Behind Aelin, a large squirrel arrayed in what was once half of a small shrub dropped to the ground, a blowpipe in one paw and another little dart in the other. He slid the dart into his pipe and called out in a gruff voice:

"Hoi! Who be yer, and what're you doin' on my land?"

Aelin stared wide-eyed at the squirrel, who could only be Pakatugg Treefleet. But his presence here was all wrong – by her guesswork, he should only be about halfway back home from the place he abandoned Mariel, and Aelin knew for certain that she was nowhere near the necessary two or three-hour march from the forest's edge to have met Pakatugg out there.

"Y'deaf or sommat? I said, you're a-tresspassin'! 'Less you knows the password, y'can get yer great log of a tail outta here!"

"I-I know the password," Aelin shouted back, her mind working frantically for it. Of all times to go blank! "Don't shoot again!"

"I ain't got all day – you know the password, y'say it," Pakatugg ordered, his blowpipe rising a fraction.

"Pak-Pakatugg Treefleet, we – um, I – I bring you...good things to eat!"

The old squirrel eyed Aelin suspiciously, his blowpipe never wavering. "Hmm. Y'knows the words, all right. But who be yer? I never seen you before."

"I know. I-I'm a...um...a special operative from Salamandastron!"

"Special whata-tative?" The look of confusion on what little Aelin could see of Pakatugg's face was almost comical. If the situation hadn't been so troublesome, and potentially painful, she may have laughed.

"I run secret missions, very important. I was given the password by the Long Patrol and told to get in contact with you – someone said that you see plenty in the woods, and might have information. Um, can't tell you too much else, see. Secret. But I do have some food to trade for whatever you can tell me about certain...things."

Aelin suddenly realized that she was still on the ground, but felt it better to wait until Pakatugg lowered his blowpipe. Her tail was all one unpleasant tingle, and the last thing she wanted was to feel that dead feeling in a paw or, worse, her ribs.

Pakatugg's scowl was back. "Somebeast's stupid up there, throwin' round passwords...and I don' 'see plenty' if I can help it. Huh, what sort of food?"

Aelin twisted her backpack off and dug out the wrapped package. It had been kind of the hares to leave it, but the food inside wasn't really to her taste. Pakatugg, on the other paw...

"I think...oatscones, and cheese, and it looks like some apple rings..."

"Do landotters and ruddertails _all_ carry the same lunch?" Despite his grouchy words, Pakatugg must have been hungry, because he scurried forward and began to tear at the wrappings around the cheese. Aelin quickly caught it up and held it out of the squirrel's reach.

"Ah-ah, talk first. Then I'll let you eat this."

Pakatugg made a move toward his blowpipe, but paused for a half moment. "Huh, fine. I got two minutes for you. Then I deaden' yer footpaws, lunch or no."

"Right," Aelin said quickly. There was no way to accurately keep time here, and so 'two minutes' could be very short, indeed...especially with Pakatugg calling time. "First question: I'm searching for two female mice. One of them wearing a plain sort of sackcloth dress, carries a knotted rope called the Gullwhacker. The other one's got dark brown fur, bluey-green tunic, gold cape. Go by the names of Storm and Azalea. Have you seen them, and if so, when and where last?"

"Shore." Pakatugg snorted and glanced greedily at the food Aelin still held out of his reach. "Both, last night, and I'm not tellin' where. My home's me own secret. Bad enough everybeast in the world's knowin' the password now. And the name wasn't Storm, at least not when they left this mornin'."

"What do you mean, her name wasn't Storm?" Aelin frowned, confused.

"I mean, that 'Zaley mousegel gave th' other one some drink, and she fell down and started a-spoutin' some story 'bout rats and bells and ships, and how her name's somethin' else. Can't 'member it. Sounded like 'barley' or 'marley' or somthin'."

Aelin's throat closed up. "Mariel?"

"Tha's right. Here now, yer two minutes is up. Hand over the food, ruddertail."

Aelin let him have it without another word and stood to leave. She half expected a fight with the grouchy squirrel over her right to walk over 'his' land, but he let her go. Possibly he realized that she was leaving what he claimed as his own, not lingering on it. Either way, it made little difference. The numb, dragging weight of Aelin's tail slowed her down as much as another argument might have.

It was almost as bad as the numb, dragging weight of her mind.

So, Mariel knew who she was...several days too early. Aelin couldn't imagine what sort of effect it might have on events. The butterfly's wingbeat, and all that. With a good deal of apprehension, Aelin thought of how she'd have to keep an eye on events at large, as much as possible. If things went all wrong, she would be the one having to fix them, more than likely...and the only device able to mend tears in the fabric of canon was a powerful one: not something she would want to use except in the direst of circumstances.

Aelin only hoped that it would _not_ be necessary.


	3. Chapter 3

Quote of the chapter:_ "Reality is not always probable, or likely." Jorge Luis Borges_

* * *

Azalea Sea-Emerald had expected this whole trip, her personal mission, to be a proverbial piece of cake. Go to Mossflower. _Check_. Hook up with Mariel. _Check_. Reveal to Mariel her name, her past, what she must do. _Check_. Move on to Redwall and get Dandin into their little group.

That part wasn't coming along quite as nicely as any of the others.

Actually, it wasn't "coming along" at all.

Azalea tried to ignore Mariel's paw tightening around her Gullwhacker as she continued the argument that they had been carrying out since noon. It was a hard thing; twice in the last hour alone Mariel had twitched as though about to let fly. The last time, Azalea was hard pressed to remain seated, with both knives sheathed, and maintain at least the appearance of calm.

"Mariel, listen to me..."

"No, _you_ listen," Mariel snapped back. "You've just told me now that my father is alive, but still on Terramort. I've got to go and find him, and help the resistance you say he's set up. And even if you're lying about that, or don't really know, I must slay Gabool the Wild for what he's done."

"But – Redwall, and Dandin..."

"I don't need any scruffy-necked little bell-ringer from an Abbey to come along and swing a sword around. I've got my Gullwhacker." As if to prove that point, Mariel's clenched paw twitched again. Azalea tried to hide her panic by getting up and pacing rapidly in front of the mousemaid she had hoped to befriend. Another failed point in her mission.

"But he's...uh...very brave, and smart. You'll need him in your quest. Besides, there's the Abbot's Midsummer Jubilee, and nobeast wants to miss a Redwall feast."

"I guess I'm _nobeast_, then. I don't care how brave or smart you think this sword-carrier is, either. I won't waste time walking south for some stupid feast and some stupid mouse when my goal is north! In fact, I don't think I'll waste any more time talking about this to you."

Azalea felt all of her carefully-made plans shatter and fall down about her. "But...but..."

"Go on to your feast, then," Mariel said, standing up fully. Azalea took an unconscious step forward, wondering for a brief moment if she might be able to wrestle Mariel down and force her to see reason. That half-formed idea got blown away in the breeze generated by the Gullwhacker snapping just short of Azalea's tiny, perfect nose. Mariel wheeled suddenly and ran off into the forest, heading north as she had promised. "_And leave me alone!_"

* * *

That night, Aelin looked up at the sky and noticed, for the first time, that something wasn't right. The stars seemed a little brighter than before, a little closer. As she watched, a point deep in the sky seemed to shiver, twist, and warp into a new shape. It lasted less than a second; by the time Aelin's mind caught up with her eyes it was gone. With a sinking feeling, Aelin ducked back into her tent, dragging her still-numb tail along with her, and pulled a crazy-looking device out from her backpack. She twiddled a few knobs, tapped on a keypad, and pulled a collapsed antenna out from the gizmo's main body.

A mechanical voice emerged from a tiny speaker and began to list off a series of measurements.

"_General Sue Influence Factor: sixty-four. Plant life: negligible influence. Non-humanoid animal life: negligible influence. Water: negligible influence. Atmospheric: negligible influence. Heavenly Bodies: negligible influence..."_

Aelin frowned in confusion.

"_...Structural: negligible influence. Character: SIF fourteen. Plot: SIF fifty..._"

The otter's eyes widened suddenly. She slapped a button on the device, cutting off the monotonous voice's report abruptly, and twiddled another dial.

"_Current Otherpath stability: eighty-five-point-two-four-five percent. Projected stability equation: point-five-six-two-five-X-squared minus seventeen-point-two-five-X plus one hundred and forty two. One X equals three hours. Y is always greater than zero and less than or equal to one hundred_"

Aelin set the measuring device to **Visual**. A lens opened in the object's side, emitting a brilliant white glow. The otter switched off her camping lantern and aimed the lens at the canvas side of her tent. The projected equation and parabolic graph confirmed her fears.

The Sue's actions had dangerously warped the reality of Mossflower, and with it, the Otherpaths. They would twist to try to match the sudden alterations, losing stability rapidly over time. Eventually they would settle again, but in a different pattern than before.

If that happened, _Mariel of Redwall_ and every following book would be altered unrecognizably, perhaps forever.

And if Aelin's new suspicions concerning the 'Sue' were correct, the otter wouldn't be able to repair that kind of rip in canon alone. In that case, she had less than thirty-six hours to find the Self-insert and make her fix everything.

* * *

Azalea was young, naive, and ignorant to the ways of the Otherpaths, but she wasn't entirely stupid. Nor was she unobservant, even when thoroughly miserable. So when the air in the forest around her seemed to flex and ripple and the sun appeared very suddenly on the horizon, she knew something odd was happening.

She just had no idea what.

* * *

Not as far away as expected, Aelin also experienced the time flux with surprise. This sort of upheaval in time and space was supposed to be fairly rare, and it could only make keeping time more difficult for her. She had about a day and a half of standard hours left until the Otherpaths' stability was at its lowest point, but any number of 'days' could flash by in those hours while the world of Mossflower adapted, making the task of keeping time by the sun impossible.

Aelin packed up her campsite and began walking, hoping against all hope to find the Self-Insert at Redwall.

* * *

The first time space shifted around Azalea, she screamed. The mousemaid only narrowly avoided the resulting avalanche when space shifted again and whisked her away from the strange mountain, landing her in the middle of a river, just in front of a stunned group of shrews in their small boats.

The argumentative beasts pulled Azalea from the water and agreed to let her spend the night.

The sun set and rose again in an hour to the mousemaid's confused eyes, though the shrews moved with it as though it was normal. Faster than she could blink, Azalea was presented with food, drink, and directions to Redwall nearby.

And then the little tribe of shrews was gone down the river.

* * *

Aelin's first space-shift ended far more fortunately than Azalea's; she landed in a tree in the Redwall orchard. Once the otter had her breath back, she wound her limbs around the branch that had caught her, and rode out the space-time storm there, fortunately hidden from view of the creatures below.

* * *

Three hours later – several days to the native woodlanders – the space-time fluctuations slowed to a near stop. Aelin took advantage of the eye-of-the-storm calm to stretch out and get down from the tree. Stiff and sore from the battering she had taken as she clung to her leafy anchor, the otter limped to the Abbey pond. A quick swim later, she felt well enough to slip into Redwall itself, avoiding everybeast she possibly could, and find herself a place to hide in an out-of-the-way, unused room.

There, Aelin waited, keeping an eye out for Azalea Sea-Emerald. After enough time to have passed for the otter to quietly sing every Disney song she knew and then some, she finally spotted her quarry on the grounds below.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the cliffhanger...

Next chapter: Aelin confronts Azalea for the second and last time, and you get a few answers about why the Otherpaths are being so wacky, and why Aelin can't fix it on her own.

The last portion of this chapter was choppy and disconnected for artistic reasons. I hope you understand.

Before anyone thinks of asking, yes, I did sit down and figure out an equation for a parabola that would fall within certain parameters for use in this chapter. It involved a lot of calculator number-pushing. Much fun.

I've determined that this fic will be a maximum of five chapters. Not a particularly long one, but this wasn't a particularly long story concept either.

Please review. Let me know what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

When the mousemaid appeared before the abbey gates, disheveled and a little confused-looking, Dandin had reacted with a sort of curious interest. It wasn't rare for the abbey to receive wanderers or other visitors, but the Abbot's Midsummer Jubilee had been days ago, and it wasn't often that a lone maid near Dandin's own age would show up alone.

Unfortunately, though, the mousemaid seemed to have latched onto him. She followed him all over the abbey, spouting something about swords and someone called Mariel. Dandin had been in Azalea's company for an hour, and already he had serious doubts about her sanity. For the sake of politeness (and perhaps safety...she _was _armed, after all) he simply went along with her strange tale, mumbling noncommittal words and humming whenever she paused, as though in agreement.

Then, suddenly, an otter stood before them.

"Hullo," she said, very cheerfully. Nevertheless, Dandin wasn't sure he liked the way she was grinning. "'Scuse me, but I need to speak in private with this young mousemaid. Sorry if I'm interrupting..."

Dandin couldn't help but feel relieved. "No, no, go ahead," he said, beginning to inch away from a suddenly dumbfounded Azalea. "No problem at all." And with that, the young mouse practically fled, leaving Azalea and Aelin alone beside the Abbey.

Aelin's grin hardened suddenly. "We _really_ need to talk."

Just as suddenly, Azalea regained control of both her vocal cords and her limbs. With a squeak of terror, she wheeled and began to run...only to feel something seize her left footpaw. Bereft of the use of that paw, she toppled to the ground, where she immediately began to kick and struggle.

The fight that followed was very short. Within minutes, Aelin was sitting on Azalea's back with both paws wrapped around the mouse's snout, stifling all noise aside from muffled squeals, and trying hard to ignore the stinging pain of a few bleeding scratches.

"Hang on now," Aelin said loudly. "I said I wanted to _talk_, not _fight_. You going to listen or not?"

Trapped as she was beneath the otter's greater weight, Azalea could only groan and nod a little.

"Okay. I'm getting up now. Then we'll go into the Abbey, find an empty room, and have a nice, civil conversation about who you are and how you got here. No fighting. No running. That good?"

Azalea nodded again, more vigorously. The otter stood up and helped the mouse to her footpaws, steadying her until she could breathe again. Then Aelin led Azalea to the room in the Abbey where she had kept watch earlier.

"Find a spot to sit," Aelin said as they entered. She closed the door behind her, then settled down on the floor in front of it. Azalea also sank down to the floor, though she did it with all the grace she could muster. Aelin looked disapprovingly at her.

"Okay, then," Azalea said, ignoring the otter's glare. "You wanted to talk, right?"

"Right," Aelin agreed. "I'm asking questions. You're answering. We might reverse that process if you can come up with inquiries pertaining to our conversation."

Azalea shrugged to hide her nervousness.

"First off, I want to know who you are, where you came from, that sort of thing. How did you come to Mossflower?"

"I'm Azalea Sea-Emerald, and I'm from the far northern lands—"

Aelin brought up a paw, abruptly cutting Azalea off. "We both know that's not true. That's just your character-story. You're a human girl, from somewhere on Earth, aren't you?"

Azalea's eyes widened.

"Yep. Thought so. I knew you weren't a normal Sue when my compressed essence of garlic had no effect on you...garlic is like acid to Sues. And if you weren't a Sue or a standard self-insert, you had to be a real-being, like myself and other Slayers."

Aelin could almost see Azalea's brain spinning from where she sat. The otter waited for the mouse's mind to settle down before continuing.

"So, as you're a real-being, I won't ask for your true name or location. Don't give that information to strangers, and all that. However, I would very much like to know how you found your way into Mossflower, _for real._ Very few have access to that kind of thought process or, in some cases, technology."

"It—it was a machine, sort of," Azalea said slowly, still in a little shock and very confused. "I got it from...a classmate at school. She said she was a member of the...something or other, I forgot the name. Something about saving books from fanfiction. She thought I was a member of it, for some reason. So she gave me this thing that hooked into the computer, and told me what it did, and how to work it. I wanted to make everything in my favorite book go right...but it didn't work out totally the way I wanted."

"Uh-huh." Aelin said. "And you decided to give yourself super fighting abilities and good looks while you were at it, yes?"

The fur on a mouse's face makes it rather hard to see one blush, but Azalea's cheeks darkened visibly nonetheless.

"Hey, I understand that," Aelin said, flapping a paw. "Trust me, some enhancement is going to happen, no matter who does it. These swords I'm wearing...I wouldn't be able to fight with them in our world. Not very well anyhow. But in Mossflower, I can. It's a necessity so that I can fight Sues here. The over-done beauty, however, could've been avoided. It's frankly a little creepy on most beasts."

Azalea thought for a little while. "You've mentioned 'Sues' several times now. And you called me 'Sue' when you first attacked me. Who are Sues?"

"Not who. What." Aelin scowled. "They're abominations of nature, whose only goal is to displace all canon with their sugary, perfect, ever-so-wonderful little selves. Usually they're written in by some fan, and often they're a form of self-insert...that is, the fan comes up with a perfect version of him or herself, and then writes a story including that character. The character is perfect and can do absolutely anything with great form and speed, usually showing up every other canon character there. Sometimes the Sue twists the personalities of canon characters, makes them fall in love with or become great friends with her. It's awful."

With a sinking feeling, Azalea thought back to her first meeting with Mariel. "Am I a Sue?"

Aelin considered the question for a few moments. "Demi-Sue," she finally said. Azalea wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. "You're not completely gone, but there are some Sue-ish qualities to you. Your fighting abilities and unnatural looks can be sorted out fairly easily, but the damage you've done to canon will take a little bit more...firepower."

"So...not a complete monster, huh?" Azalea said with relief.

"Nope. If you were, I'd probably have to kill you."

Azalea leapt to her footpaws. "_Kill me?_"

"No! No, no, wait a moment here! I said _if you were_, and you aren't. No worries."

"You would _kill_ me?"

"Now hold on one moment..."

"You said I was a real-being, or whatever that was! Doesn't that mean I'm really here?"

"Yes, but—"

"And if I'm really here, and you killed me, doesn't that mean I'd really be _dead_?"

"You'd pop right back to the place where you left Earth, completely unharmed! Trust me on this."

"And how would you know? You ever died here?" Azalea snapped.

"No, but I've conducted experiments," Aelin replied as quietly as she was able. The last thing she wanted was for some inquisitive Abbey-dweller to come into the room and start asking questions. "I've captured beetles, brought them here, and killed them off. Every time, I've gone home and they were back in their little boxes, not a scratch on them."

"Still..." Azalea whispered, lowering herself to the floor again. "You'd _kill_..."

"That's sort of my job. It's what Slayers do – we kill off Sues before they can ruin too much, and fix what they do try to destroy. But you're safe, okay? I think that you're redeemable, for one thing, and for another...well, I kind of need you to clean up the mess you've made here."

"Huh?"

"Okay, I just said that Slayers fix what Sues break, right? Well, when a real-being, usually a Slayer, accidentally messes up canon, he or she has to be the one to fix it. No other real-being can do that for them. So by tearing up the space-time-plot continuum out here, you've pretty much ascertained that you're the only one who can repair it."

"Ri-ight...and how do I repair this rip? I can't sew, so if it involves anything like stitching, I'm done for."

"No, no sewing required. It's pretty simple, but fast paced. I need to know if you have a quick way to get back home."

Azalea reached down the neck of her tunic and pulled out a black rectangle on a lanyard. She dug a claw into its side, and the thing popped open on a couple of tiny hinges, revealing a small, steadily-glowing green light over a red button. "This'll take me home. I just need to hit the button."

"Good," Aelin said. "The way the fixing works is sort of like...well, setting off a bomb. We set down the charge anywhere handy. You'll need to be the one to pull the pin on it, though. Then we have a count of three seconds to get our tails back home. It's very powerful. Sort of a super-scrubber for canon. It completely eviscerates every being, every event that wasn't supposed to be there or happen. I did the beetle experiment using one of those – left the beetle there after setting it off. The poor critter wasn't there when I got home that time."

Azalea gulped.

"We'll be fine. Three seconds...plenty of time. Just have your little button in paw and ready to push the moment you yank that pin clear."

The mousemaid's mind was already creating scenarios in which she dropped her return-button, or her claw slipped, or she fumbled it for just a little to long...or it didn't work...

"Hey!" Aelin snapped a claw under Azalea's nose. "Snap out of it. You'll be just fine. I've never heard of anyone actually getting fried by the charges...that's why I did the beetle experiment, so that I _would_ know if it had any permanent effect on those who got in its way."

"Okay...okay, then...I'm fine..." Azalea took a deep breath. "So I set this thing off, we both run for it...then what?"

"Dunno...here, I'll give you my e-mail address. Once we're back home and everything's calmed down, you can contact me." Aelin seized her backpack and dug a pencil and paper out of it. She scrawled the contact information across the paper, folded it, and passed it over to Azalea. The mousemaid tucked it into a pocket in her cloak.

Aelin had just reached into her pack for the canon-charge when time shivered once again, propelling the day forward with startling speed.

"Oh, no."

As Azalea opened her mouth to ask what was happening, space also suddenly rippled around them. The empty room in Redwall Abbey vanished, replaced by a windswept deck and the smells and sounds of the sea.

Azalea realized suddenly that there was something tightly clamped around her right arm – Aelin's paw. As the deck heaved, the otter's grip grew tighter and she made an odd gulping noise. The ship pitched again, and Aelin fell to the deck, looking as green as an otter could. Azalea, however, was distracted by the Slayer's predicament at that moment, as she had just realized that the ship was practically covered with Corsair rats, and all of them were staring at the two strangers.

The ship rolled again. Aelin moaned. Azalea was starting to feel a little queasy herself. The rats, however, were perfectly acclimated to the conditions, and they began to stir among themselves. Azalea couldn't hear much, but from the bursts she caught, they were apparently deliberating whether to inform the captain of the strangers' presence, or to just kill the two and toss the bodies overboard.

The mousemaid, for all of Aelin's assurances and beetle experiments, didn't particularly want to experience being killed, so she counted it as good luck when space and time began to shiver again at that moment. She took the time to grab Aelin – one pawful of tunic, and another of one of the otter's footpaws – and then the ship was gone.

They landed in Mossflower wood, close enough to clearly see the top of Redwall Abbey through gaps in the canopy. Time began to flash by again, faster than before.

And then, without warning, they were on Terramort. Fort Bladegirt, just visible over the hill they had landed behind, was unmistakable. Aelin and Azalea crouched in that little bit of cover behind a giant boulder (probably the same one Lord Rawnblade rolled into the Fort's wall) and waited while the sun rose, set, rose, and set again in the space of three minutes.

And then the time-storm was over.

Aelin stood up cautiously, peeking over the boulder's edge at the dark structure nearby.

"I don't much like this one," she whispered. "Want to set that charge and go?"

Before Azalea could answer, a great roar of noise sounded from the other end of Fort Bladegirt, accompanied after a moment by a hollow boom. Bladegirt came alive with shouting searats, moments before whatever-it-was boomed out again.

Aelin stared over the boulder, trying to make out the dark shapes in the Fort's yard. The flickering torchlight there made it hard to see, but the rats appeared to be flocking toward the gate. In a flash, Aelin realized what was happening.

"They're attacking!" She slid down the hill, on the side opposite that of Bladegirt. On the way down she grabbed Azalea's footpaw, taking her along. They were just in time; moments after landing at the base of the hill and scrambling away, a massive badger snuck up to the point behind the boulder and began to push. The gates of Bladegirt boomed again.

And then an arc of golden light shot over their heads to land in the grass nearly five feet in front of them. The grass smoldered, then abruptly lit up. Aelin backpedaled frantically against the hill; Azalea ducked sideways and back.

"Fire arrows?" Azalea said incredulously. "They didn't use fire arrows in the book, and they didn't shoot at the boulder!"

"Some rat died in the book, but lived this time...some rat saw the boulder moving, and some rat had a brilliant idea: burn them out!" Aelin's tone was oddly bitter. Another flaming shaft hit the boulder, throwing sparks, and bounced off it. Rawnblade flinched, but only heaved harder at the great rock. The arrow rolled down the hill, setting a narrow swath of grass and groundcover aflame. "See what happens when something is changed? Everything else around it might change as well. Those time and space fluxes are the world's efforts to match those changes, to try to fit them. We don't fit into this world, so we notice them. Now let's get that charge set!"

Aelin dug through her backpack, finally emerging with a small, cylindrical object that had a large red pin stuck through its top. The otter set this on the ground, strapped her backpack on, and took a clip off of one end of the pin.

"That was a safety," she said, tucking the clip into her pocket. "Keeps it from going off accidentally, or at the wrong moment. Okay, open up your return button, and hold it in one paw with a claw over it."

Azalea did so, and then noticed that Aelin held nothing herself. "How will you get back?"

"I go by otherpaths. I'll have to tell you about those someday...but not now. Okay, on a count of three, pull that pin out, and then go! Ready?"

Azalea gripped the pin and nodded assent. Another arrow exploded the ground into flame near the other side of the hill. The air was getting smoky and difficult to breathe.

"One...two...three!"

Just as Azalea yanked the pin from its place and moved to push her return button, a flaming arrow fell from the sky and struck her in the heart.

"AZALEA!"

Aelin saw her form shimmer and vanish, saw the charge begin to glow with a blue-white light, and she did the only thing she could.

She ducked into the otherpaths and returned home.

* * *

**AN:** Okay, there's an Epilogue coming to wrap up a few points. Sorry about all the exposition...next time I write a Sue-fighting fic, I'll not make the character someone who can be talked to and brought over, okay? More fighting that way, though a shorter story. This concept, however, was just one I wanted to play with.


	5. Epilogue in Emails

**Disclaimer: **All e-mail addresses were made up by me. Any similarities between these and actual addresses are coincidental. I do not think that there is an 'email' or 'fanfic' address anywhere, though I could be wrong...Please also note that as 'at' signs don't show up, I've replaced them with dots.

**AN:** Very early update. I guess I was inspired, or I knew exactly what I wanted to write...either way, special treat. End of this story. But keep your eyes open: storiewriter and I are currently working on a short sue-fighting fic in the style of _The Sky's the Limit_ by Kelawolf the Deranged. It will be uploaded on my (this) account.

Happy reading!

Quote of the Chapter: _If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance. -Andrea Boydston_

_--_

**This is Azalea...**

From: **Sea-Emerald** (mousemaid5.email)

Sent: Tue 6/17/08 8:53 AM

To: Aelin (Oreramar.fanfic)

Hey, Aylin (am I spelling that right?)

I guess you can already tell, by getting this e-mail, but I got home OK. I don't even really remember what hit me. Was it one of those arrows? Happened too fast, and I hardly felt a thing...felt like something had punched me, but that was it.

I wanted to go back and see if everything came out OK, but there might be a glitch in my transporter or something. Could you do me a favor? Take a beetle to Redwall and kill it, then take it back there? I want to know if it's the transporter I'm using, or if it's just me...

-Azalea, whose name will be changed from Sea-Emerald to something...better.

P.S. I looked up a definition for Sues on Wikipedia. Ouch. Sorry about that.

**RE: This is Azalea...**

From: **Aelin** (Oreramar.fanfic)

Sent: Tue 6/17/08 12:39 PM

To: Sea-Emerald (mousemaid5.email)

You have no idea how relieved I am to hear from you. Yes, it was an arrow. Near as I could tell, you sort of faded away before you could push the return button...

I did the beetle experiment. Several times. I might have traumatized them...dunno. But I'm afraid it's not your equipment. I guess that once you die in a world, you can't go back to it...

I did add a little to the experiment though. Took a beetle killed in Redwall to Middle-Earth (Lord of the Rings place, in case you didn't already know) and it worked fine. So you can go to other places...

Try not to make another mess, okay? ;)

Good luck with the name-choosing. Dunno if it'll inspire or anything, but I use the surname Wordsmith.

By the way, your spelling was pretty close. It's Aelin.

**

* * *

**

Name Change and Questions

From: **Starr** (mousemaid5.email)

Sent: Thu 6/19/08 5:34 PM

To: Aelin (Oreramar.fanfic)

Changing surname to Starr. It's not too Sue-like, is it? I just couldn't decide on anything else that sounded OK, but sorta normal. I'll keep Azalea. I just like those flowers.

Thanks for doing the beetle thing for me. That answers that question at least.

OK, not sure how to phrase this, so I'll just shoot: I want to become a Sue Fighter. Probably not a slayer...but I would like to help somehow. Can you hook me up with anything? Suggest other series to read up on? I've not really read many books other than Redwall, and since those aren't an option anymore...

Thanks

-Azalea Starr

**RE: Name Change and Questions**

From: **Aelin** (Oreramar.fanfic)

Sent: Thu 6/19/08 5:49 PM

To: Starr (mousemaid5.email)

Attached: booklist1.doc (23.7 KB), booklist2.doc (21.3 KB)

Starr works. It's not really pretentious sounding or anything. And Azalea is, as far as I know, a pretty normal name for people.

I included a couple of Word documents. First one is a list of books (and some movies) that you might want to look at for work in Sue fighting. The second is a list of books and movies that you might just want to look at for entertainment value, because they probably aren't Sue-magnets right now.

I would also suggest talking to that classmate of yours. If she's a member of an organization, she might be able to help you get started: find a partner, get some training, etc.

Best of luck,

Aelin Wordsmith

* * *


End file.
